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Ogmius815 posted:Oh my god. White adolescents are not marginalized by society because they are unpopular. Dylan and Eric would disagree.
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Jun 9, 2016 06:03
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Sword and Sceptre posted:Dylan and Eric would disagree. True gamers...
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Jun 9, 2016 07:28
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Sword and Sceptre posted:Dylan and Eric would disagree. Dylan and Eric weren't even unpopular. One was a genuine psychopath and the other was a tool. Every loser white kid thinks his suffering makes him special and every one of them is just wrong.
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Jun 9, 2016 07:46
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Indeed, no one is special...
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Jun 9, 2016 08:17
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And like clockwork, the "conversation" about the meaning of this particular word has circled back to "lol fuckin losers lol fuckin white kids."
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Jun 9, 2016 08:35
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lynch_69 posted:True gamers... Well, they did play doom and harris made his own doom maps. That gets you some OG cred, if they were still alive 
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Jun 9, 2016 09:22
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bloodysabbath posted:And like clockwork, the "conversation" about the meaning of this particular word has circled back to "lol fuckin losers lol fuckin white kids." Vote Trump, play Halo.
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Jun 9, 2016 11:27
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Gamers are the kind of people who can't handle provocative articles about their particular hobby or games within it. Honestly the hyper-critical stuff is a lot more entertaining to read than someone gushing over whichever game came out this week. Stellaris! It's the best! Immersion! Narrative! Buzzwords!
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Jun 9, 2016 11:31
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I honestly think gamers who whine about the sad state of games journalism have this embedded in their brains as to what constitutes proper and honest games journalism: That, and enthusiastic kids on YouTube gushing excitedly over whatever the PR department sends them this week. If you read any of the big threads in the games forum it's usually a handful of posters endlessly repeating things like TAKE MY MONEY, THIS IS A LICENSE TO PRINT MONEY and OMFG I JUST PREORDERED ALL SEVEN BOX VARIANTS OF ~obscure Japanese JRPG~. They like being excited about their toys, any critical appraisal that goes beyond simple fanboyism will likely get you probated for trolling in Games and, in the case of actual games journalists, rape/death threats.
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Jun 9, 2016 11:44
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bloodysabbath posted:And like clockwork, the "conversation" about the meaning of this particular word has circled back to "lol fuckin losers lol fuckin white kids." Dunno, you're the one who came up with a huge false equivalence between poorly socialized people with a hobby and actually oppressed people. Sorry the loud standard bearers of the hobby you identify with are awful people who harass women and people trying to clean up the dirty corners of gaming, but acting like people shouldn't react to it is a special kind of entitled.
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Jun 9, 2016 12:19
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lynch_69 posted:I honestly think gamers who whine about the sad state of games journalism have this embedded in their brains as to what constitutes proper and honest games journalism: I guess it comes down to what you want out of games journalism w/r/t things labeled as reviews. If you want competent consumer buying advice as to whether or not a product is worth the better part of a hundred dollar bill, that rubric isn't a bad framework at all. If you think a 5000 word missive tying a multiplayer shooter to a person's lovely life experience or personal politics constitutes a solid, informative review, I can see taking issue with it. Really, it comes down to if you see AAA games (and make no mistake, most of the furor on both sides is about a handful of expensive to make, expensive to sell AAA titles) as rapidly cycling consumer entertainment products or modern art pieces which must be judged aside The Iliad, Mona Lisa, and Piss Christ . Many game journalists are siding with the latter view, while most people who buy the things are more inclined toward the former. rkajdi posted:Dunno, you're the one who came up with a huge false equivalence between poorly socialized people with a hobby and actually oppressed people. I think you (willingly?) missed the part where I said I stop well short of claiming you can "marginalize" a group based on their consumer hobby.
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Jun 10, 2016 01:51
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So basically for all the non-gamers imagine you just want to sit their and read your Ulysses or some russian literature, while a loud obnoxious group of large women and white dudes with pink hair yell at you and demand that they be given the same amount of respect for reading Garfield the cat comics.
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Jun 10, 2016 04:59
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Sword and Sceptre posted:So basically for all the non-gamers imagine you just want to sit their and read your Ulysses or some russian literature, while a loud obnoxious group of large women and white dudes with pink hair yell at you and demand that they be given the same amount of respect for reading Garfield the cat comics. The fact that self identified hardcore gamers equate AAA video games with Ulysses or Russian literature tells everyone everything they need to know about this topic. Close thread.
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Jun 10, 2016 07:11
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I like playing video games a lot and would describe it as my main hobby, so I guess that makes me a gamer. I'm often dismayed at the hypocrisy of the gaming community when it comes to the medium; the "hardcore" people seem to be acting out childishly because they finally got what they wanted and now can't handle it. I spent my youth steadfastly defending games as being an artform, arguing that they had a social value to contribute, and that this would only grow as the medium matured. Many of my fellows in the community made the exact same argument. And now, ten or fifteen years later we're seeing the fruits of that as games take crucial steps both into the mainstream and into societal criticism and social commentary, which I think is a great development. But that means games themselves now need to be subjected to that same criticism and commentary, that's part of being art. And now suddenly large sections of the gamer community can't handle that and want to crawl back into their pre-artistic cave and fling death threats at critics. I think the criticism is great. Games haven't had a Ulysses yet and won't for a long time, but if gamers and game makers engage with criticism and try to do criticism of their own, however clumsy it is from both sides, the medium will be better for it and games will get better, both as art and as entertainment.
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Jun 10, 2016 08:25
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I think that the "are games art" and what is a "gamer" arguments are almost completely separate. One is about subculture and online communities, the other about "what is art", a question no one has concisely and convincingly answered. If you wanna argue about something, I'll say SMAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri is art. Go hog wild.
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Jun 10, 2016 09:05
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doverhog posted:I think that the "are games art" and what is a "gamer" arguments are almost completely separate. On, the contrary, I'd say that the question of whether games are art has been a core question in the gaming community since its inception, and it has been the recent change where games are now being accepted as art (both by developers trying to make "worthy" games, and critics applying traditional art criticism to the medium) which has caused the existential crisis in the gamer community that spawned all that horrible poo poo we've seen recently that has led to many members of the community feeling reluctant now to even identify themselves as "gamers". If the status of games in art was not in question one way or the other, I don't think there'd be any current controversy in the community over what is or is not a game, or who is or is not a gamer. We see these discussions and arguments now because some extremely vocal members of the community are unwilling to engage with the consequences of games being art. This isn't the only factor in the recent breakdown of the community, but I'd say this, along with the greater mainstreaming of gaming as a hobby are the two biggest drivers of people inside the community either becoming unwilling to call themselves "gamers" out of fear of association, and others becoming unwilling to admit anyone other than a small and specific class of the hardcore into the term. Demographic change was the powder and Art [games and criticism] was the spark. Reveilled fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 09:26
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The gamers involved in gamergate or such do not care about what is art, they are afraid of their identity and community of like minded people going away.
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Jun 10, 2016 09:39
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doverhog posted:The gamers involved in gamergate or such do not care about what is art, they are afraid of their identity and community of like minded people going away. They are afraid of this because they are treating artistic criticism as an attack on their identity. Reveilled fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 09:48
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Ok, the issue is still a perceived attack on their identity, not the artistic merits of games. The attack could be come from any angle, the point is, it is perceived to be an attack.
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Jun 10, 2016 09:53
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doverhog posted:Ok, the issue is still a perceived attack on their identity, not the artistic merits of games. The attack could be come from any angle, the point is, it is perceived to be an attack. The place the "attack" is coming from matters though. When it was "games are harmful to children and make them violent" everyone who played games as a hobby was united in agreement that this was a stupid and baseless attack and everyone in the community sang from the same hymnsheet on it. When it became "games have problematic messages due to their underlying attitudes on sex and race", some welcomed that criticism and saw it as a sign that games were growing up as a medium and now able to contribute to society in a constructive way, and with that came the consequence that games should be held accountable for their messages, whether explicit or implied. Others saw it as an attack on their identity, and that divided the community as a result. It was because the implicit assumption in wider society that "games are not art" began to change that the question of "what is a gamer" came up. It was because game developers started very consciously trying to make worthy artistic works that the question of "what is a game" came up. If the "attack" had come from somewhere else, these questions would have not come up or have come up differently, because they would either have been genuine attacks (e.g. banning video games) which would have meant anyone who said they were a gamer be welcomed through solidarity, or it would have been an "attack" about something else and the line would get drawn differently. I mean, if you don't think the gamersgate type folk care about whether games are art, why do you think the common defense against attempted analysis of games is "it's just a game"? To me, that says that the only defense they can make against such criticisms is to deny that critical analysis applies to games, which is functionally the same thing as saying that they are not art.
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Jun 10, 2016 10:08
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You make some good points. I'd still say, the questions are separate, but games being critiqued as art is a factor in the gamer question. You won. gz
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Jun 10, 2016 10:15
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doverhog posted:You make some good points. I'd still say, the questions are separate, but games being critiqued as art is a factor in the gamer question. You won. gz For that it's worth, I'll agree SMAC was art. 
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Jun 10, 2016 10:20
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Gamergate got most its energy from the low key black listing and hit pieces games media was doing against developers for years. People would not care about "artistic criticism" unless all that is is saying something is sexist/racist and contributing to social media campaigns to keep it from being sold/coming out.
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Jun 10, 2016 10:35
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afeelgoodpoop posted:Gamergate got most its energy from the low key black listing and hit pieces games media was doing against developers for years. People would not care about "artistic criticism" unless all that is is saying something is sexist/racist and contributing to social media campaigns to keep it from being sold/coming out. The problem is someone will eventually ask you for solid examples of these "low key black listing and hit pieces games media was doing against developers for years" and "social media campaigns to keep it from being sold/coming out" and you'll pull some well worn tropes from gamergate.txt which have been debunked a million times before. To make things worse, the disproportionate toxic reaction totally eclipses the conversation, and you're left with a situation where these young men are so angry and nuts over their video games that Breitbart and other right wing groups swoop in to recruit tomorrow's Republicans.
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Jun 10, 2016 11:15
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I would say SMAC is very dated and hackneyed in terms of its writing- just a bunch of ideological caricatures duking it out with civ2 mechanics but AMPED UP. I would say Deidre, for example, is straight out of the 90s. Also its fans are insufferable retards who want strategy games to be dumb narrative poo poo instead of mechanically strong games like civ4. There's still game reviews out there and you can always hit up metacritic if you want that. The existence of other kinds of articles doesn't really prohibit standard x/10 x/5 reviews. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 12:00
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Panzeh posted:I would say SMAC is very dated and hackneyed in terms of its writing- just a bunch of ideological caricatures duking it out with civ2 mechanics but AMPED UP. SMAC has a decent story that fits into the Civ2 mechanics. It explores stuff you find in novels while being a game at the same time. The faction leaders are stereotypes because they serve as shorthand for the story. Even so, they are better characterized than the vast majority of game characters. Whether it's fans are retards or Civ4 mechanically better has nothing to do with the art question.
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Jun 10, 2016 14:10
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afeelgoodpoop posted:Gamergate got most its energy from the low key black listing and hit pieces games media was doing against developers for years. People would not care about "artistic criticism" unless all that is is saying something is sexist/racist and contributing to social media campaigns to keep it from being sold/coming out. Exactly this. Games writers who fancy themselves in the business of high-minded criticism, to a man, suffer from the inability to articulate their points in anything approaching a reasoned manner. Two flavors of game "criticism" overwhelmingly dominate: clickbait-style pearl clutching, which gamers react poorly to because it's the same tired poo poo they got during the 90s/00s, and it doesn't matter if it's coming from opportunistic journalists now instead of opportunistic politicians. The second flavor is articles in which the writer is clearly in love with the sound of their own voice, use 100 words where 1 would do, and usually tie a video game to some personal baggage. They are even less able to tolerate criticism of their criticism, and, as lynch does, use the looming spectre of Gamergate as a boogeyman to deflect it, usually making a snarky social media comment about "lol manbaby fedora nerd loser" in the process. I do think it's interesting how the Gamergate shitshow is characterized as both an impotent, laughable death rattle from a dying breed of "shitslinging hyper consumer," AND an ever-present mighty barbaric horde with the magic power to turn words on the Internet into real life terror and carnage. Which it is depends on whatever fits the writer's agenda at the time.
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Jun 10, 2016 16:47
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bloodysabbath posted:I think you (willingly?) missed the part where I said I stop well short of claiming you can "marginalize" a group based on their consumer hobby. No, you made an equivalence between minority people trying to clean up gaming and the people sending rape/death threats to whoever didn't give Chris Kyle Simulator 2016 an A+++ greatest game ever review. Acting like they are both valid sides of an argument effectively says that "Maybe we should actually think about the themes involved in our media instead of mindlessly consuming" and the threats I won't even think to re-write are both about at the same level. I'm sorry, but I disagree and think I have lots of company here. I get that it's scary to see things you enjoy get criticized, but that's the only way things get better and gaming gets out of the AAA ghetto it's been stuck in for over a console generation. If movies are any indication, even decent criticism won't kill the worst excesses anyway, judging by the fact that Michael Bay is still a thing and The Green Inferno made it to theaters. Honestly, a diversity in gaming can only help when the AAA bubble bursts (it'll happen sooner rather than later) so that there's something to pick up the slack instead of everything being a high cost, high risk endeavor. You just need to get past the point where somehow games are some special snowflake that has to have "objective"-style reviews without the slightest hint of the thoughts of the critic-- note: Just asking for an apolitical review is in itself political, especially given how slanted gaming has become in the last decade or so.
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Jun 10, 2016 17:05
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http://www.thejimquisition.com/watch-dogs-2-and-the-steam-users-who-hate-black-people/ holy poo poo, people are stupid assholes. I think their echo chamber went full /pol/.
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Jun 10, 2016 17:08
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Dapper_Swindler posted:http://www.thejimquisition.com/watch-dogs-2-and-the-steam-users-who-hate-black-people/ See, and just by shining a light on poo poo like this gets the author labelled as a liberal activist clickbait yellow journalist. It's like you're not even allowed to report on the objective reality of what's going in gaming communities without being called "the enemy". It's very much a case gamers saying: "Write about video games strictly as consumer items like refrigerators or LED light bulbs and let's collectively pretend it's 1992 where this is a niche hobby that exists in its own plane of reality completely separate from politics or culture."
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Jun 10, 2016 17:29
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bloodysabbath posted:Exactly this. Games writers who fancy themselves in the business of high-minded criticism, to a man, suffer from the inability to articulate their points in anything approaching a reasoned manner. Two flavors of game "criticism" overwhelmingly dominate: clickbait-style pearl clutching, which gamers react poorly to because it's the same tired poo poo they got during the 90s/00s, and it doesn't matter if it's coming from opportunistic journalists now instead of opportunistic politicians. The second flavor is articles in which the writer is clearly in love with the sound of their own voice, use 100 words where 1 would do, and usually tie a video game to some personal baggage. And this is where you lose your audience. The reason gamers get the "fedora manbaby nerd loser" line is specifically because they reply to criticism of their hobby with death threats. Never mind the disgusting behavior you see in online gaming towards women and other minorities. The solution is to call it out whenever you see it and excise the cancer from the community, which I give journalists plenty of props for trying to do. Of course, this also tends to bring out the worst of the community at the same time. Instead of coming up with an anti-intellectual argument against people, use the opportunity to see which of the people standing beside you are awful people willing to attack women and minorities, and tell them to GTFO out of your community. In reality, this isn't a gamergate thing, at least in so much as GG is about specific events instead of the pernicious alt right movement that's corrupting online culture. A bunch of young white men are angry that life isn't as slanted towards them as it was even a decade ago, and instead of just sucking it up and dealing like an adult, they're taking it out on anyone who's not a 100% white male average joe or willing to mindlessly defer to them. The abusive end of gamers are just another tentacle of this movement, same as the sad puppies, metalgate, or even the internet support for Trump.
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Jun 10, 2016 17:36
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Why should anyone, self-identified gamer or not, give a poo poo about the "community"? I play video games, I'm sure some racist or sexist person plays the same video games I do. So what?
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Jun 10, 2016 17:39
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lynch_69 posted:See, and just by shining a light on poo poo like this gets the author labelled as a liberal activist clickbait yellow journalist. It's like you're not even allowed to report on the objective reality of what's going in gaming communities without being called "the enemy". pretty much. sure their are a bunch of critics and sites i dont like personaly, because i find them too pretentious or cherrypicking/etc but i dont think deep analysis is bad thing. Personaly i am excited for mafia 3 and watchdogs 2. partly because of the minority protags.
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Jun 10, 2016 17:45
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Powercrazy posted:Why should anyone, self-identified gamer or not, give a poo poo about the "community"? Personally I'd like people to be able to discuss games critically without being subjected to death threats. I think that would make games better. So I care about the community because members of the community are making those death threats and I'd like them to stop doing that please.
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Jun 10, 2016 18:18
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Powercrazy posted:Why should anyone, self-identified gamer or not, give a poo poo about the "community"? You don't need to, but then you don't get to complain when people criticize you for standing next to them. The people you associate with reflect on you. Note that I play games a good bit (though I doubt I qualify as a gamer since I haven't bothered with AAA games in two generations) and I understand I need to help keep my side of the street clean. It also helps me too, since sunshine has helped get some of the more disgusting parts of Japanese games (sexualization of children, weird levels of misogyny and racism) out of the American releases. Nothing annoyed me more than when I bought Star Ocean: The Last Hope looking for an actionish RPG like the rest of the series, and instead got all the hallmarks of some pedo dating sim (Thousand year olds stuck in children's bodies, crazy levels of fanservice, ect) I get that Japanese culture is different, but I honestly don't care and would prefer to never have to ask around if games had that kind of garbage in them again. As a positive example, Bravely Second making less skimpy outfits for the underage girls in the game while also dumping the Native American minstrel show costumes showed that someone at NoA was actually paying attention for once.
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Jun 10, 2016 18:40
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rkajdi posted:You don't need to, but then you don't get to complain when people criticize you for standing next to them. The people you associate with reflect on you. Note that I play games a good bit (though I doubt I qualify as a gamer since I haven't bothered with AAA games in two generations) and I understand I need to help keep my side of the street clean. It also helps me too, since sunshine has helped get some of the more disgusting parts of Japanese games (sexualization of children, weird levels of misogyny and racism) out of the American releases. Nothing annoyed me more than when I bought Star Ocean: The Last Hope looking for an actionish RPG like the rest of the series, and instead got all the hallmarks of some pedo dating sim (Thousand year olds stuck in children's bodies, crazy levels of fanservice, ect) I get that Japanese culture is different, but I honestly don't care and would prefer to never have to ask around if games had that kind of garbage in them again. As a positive example, Bravely Second making less skimpy outfits for the underage girls in the game while also dumping the Native American minstrel show costumes showed that someone at NoA was actually paying attention for once. I think most of the weird overtly sexual poo poo is mostly confined to japanes games. most western games dont go for weird sexual poo poo/overt titalation anymore. yeah some put shocking sexual stuff in or have nudity/sex scenes for better or worse. like the witcher series, but those have grown too. yeah their is tits and rear end, but most of the female characters are actual developed characters. hell wolfenstien new order probaly has one of the more mature sex scenes out there. so at least the west is getting better. then again. i dont play many japanese games, apart from yakuza and mgs. yeah mgs has issues, but you are never going to change kojima and his games are pretty left leaning politically already, so i can forgive some lovely character design/outfits. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 19:02
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lynch_69 posted:The fact that self identified hardcore gamers equate AAA video games with Ulysses or Russian literature tells everyone everything they need to know about this topic. Close thread. Not once did I mention AAA games but please keep making assumptions. rkajdi posted:You don't need to, but then you don't get to complain when people criticize you for standing next to them. The people you associate with reflect on you. Note that I play games a good bit (though I doubt I qualify as a gamer since I haven't bothered with AAA games in two generations) and I understand I need to help keep my side of the street clean. It also helps me too, since sunshine has helped get some of the more disgusting parts of Japanese games (sexualization of children, weird levels of misogyny and racism) out of the American releases. Nothing annoyed me more than when I bought Star Ocean: The Last Hope looking for an actionish RPG like the rest of the series, and instead got all the hallmarks of some pedo dating sim (Thousand year olds stuck in children's bodies, crazy levels of fanservice, ect) I get that Japanese culture is different, but I honestly don't care and would prefer to never have to ask around if games had that kind of garbage in them again. As a positive example, Bravely Second making less skimpy outfits for the underage girls in the game while also dumping the Native American minstrel show costumes showed that someone at NoA was actually paying attention for once. This is the crux of the problem with "non-gamers"(you are clearly a gamer) and their criticism of games. You want to dictate the social norms of another culture, because presumably you have such a narrow world view anything that you find questionable or don't understand has to be nixed. No other media form is under the same form of scrutiny as video games. I personally find Schindler's List ahistorical, deplorable, and a jewish fluff piece. That being said I'm still glad that a challenging film that tries to tackle that subject matter exists, that is the central difference video games and other mediums, their critics are grown up enough to live and let live.
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Jun 10, 2016 19:58
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Sword and Sceptre posted:I personally find Schindler's List ahistorical, deplorable, and a jewish fluff piece.  Okay, now I see how you earned your red title. Also, literally every other form of media is under as much scrutiny as video games. I've seen long rear end think pieces about the themes and political messages of movies, tv shows, books, songs, you name it!
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Jun 10, 2016 20:10
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WampaLord posted:
I was more referring to the twitter and op-ed hit pieces or the struggle between gamer gaters and their opponents. I would love more long form criticism of video games.
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Jun 10, 2016 20:17
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Sword and Sceptre posted:This is the crux of the problem with "non-gamers"(you are clearly a gamer) and their criticism of games. You want to dictate the social norms of another culture, because presumably you have such a narrow world view anything that you find questionable or don't understand has to be nixed. No other media form is under the same form of scrutiny as video games. I personally find Schindler's List ahistorical, deplorable, and a jewish fluff piece. That being said I'm still glad that a challenging film that tries to tackle that subject matter exists, that is the central difference video games and other mediums, their critics are grown up enough to live and let live. As far as hills to die on, I think sexualized depictions of children is a pretty good one to die on. It's also pretty rich watching a literal Nazi try to try to make an argument to live and let live. Honestly, just being on the other side of an issue from you makes me feel pretty good that I'm in a decent spot. Also, the things we see in video games would easily be criticized in other mediums if it showed up there. Remember that there was a pretty big outcry about The Green Inferno? Shockingly, decent people are willing to stand up when wrong things are being put out there, not that you'd know anything about being a decent person. Sword and Sceptre posted:I was more referring to the twitter and op-ed hit pieces or the struggle between gamer gaters and their opponents. I would love more long form criticism of video games. Yes, because Sad Puppies, Metalgate, or similar fights in the tabletop community obviously don't exist. The GG stuff is bigger because video games are bigger. You get decent long form criticism, but the community doesn't like it when it ends up with things like "Why are angry white guys so predominantly the main characters in games", and that bring out the alt right threat brigade to push their bile out on the screen and page. You can't get expect that these kinds of craven attacks just get to happen without any mention.
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Jun 10, 2016 22:33
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